Best Of

Here some findings from today's second chance round. This is not stuff for everyone, as the title will suggest it makes heavy reading. But bear with me. I think I'm having another Eureka moment here.

I've played three brand new accounts so far (more to follow if I can stand playing the same 34 levels over and over) in the second chance round.

This is a 24 hour round, 50 contestants, only one qualifier.

1st attempt:

started ten minutes into the round

I played a few levels then stopped playing and watched the leaderboard.

After twenty minutes every player had stopped playing. Two players had used a token:

Then this is what happened:

Standard stuff, right? We've all seen this throughout the qualifying rounds.

But…. and here comes the big "but".

Here comes Attempt no. 2.

I started the round at 22hours 27 minutes left.

I started using one of my multiplier tokens straight away. This is the leaderboard after half an hour:

Nobody played a token! Everyone was continuously crushing the entire time!

Next attempt, no. 3:

I started with 21 hours and 19 minutes left for the round. I played steadily but not using any tokens.

The board after about half an hour:

Everyone continued to play for the entire half hour. Three players used a token.

This makes very uncomfortable reading my friends. But it answer a lot of questions we had asked in the other thread. I won't go into the analysis here because to those who can work it out it will be obvious. I don't know what to say quite frankly. I might do another test run. Attempt 1 mirrors what I've seen throughout the rounds, so I will repeat 2 and 3 and see if the outcome is different.

The question is: How does this affect our strategy for the knockout rounds?

G'day!

Sorry for the slightly late post, but this is an important postmortem.

This stage has been marred by the dash and unclickability bug. This bug not only prevents you from clicking on the widget, but also negated your score under this bug. This is inequitable.

I deduced that this bug is likely serverside; this bug applied whenever I installed then logged in in the Windows app edition, and the workaround only worked on the mobile device which was the device which I started the stage with. Multiple support staff came to address the issue; none of them are able to find the potential root cause, instead suggesting me to clear the cache or even the data to resolve.

Nonetheless, I clinched party booster territory this week, scoring second with a 5000-score margin.

The bug

Workaround will fail.	Workaround might succeed.

I have made several posts concerning this bug.

• The glitch
• The workaround
• YouTube videos: mobile, desktop, workaround (mobile)

The stage

I am still able to land comfortably in the party booster spots. This is a 12-episode week; one is only for the Royales; I otherwise could have eleven episodes worth of unhexed scoring if not for the glitch.

Thursday (one session)

Completed four episodes in one sitting at 6:30pm EDT, capitalizing on my weekly podium prize, which is worth an entire extra episode and fifty minutes worth of booster passes to be used during levels.

I discovered the glitch after revisiting the game to watch a few ads and to land a lucky draw to complete a gold box task.

Friday (one session)

Posted my detailed findings for the glitch and the support request. Landed on the jackpot on the booster wheel, so that means one extra episode is completed.

Saturday (one session)

I am able to find the workaround after noticing the countdown of the All Stars widget reappeared when I opened the game offline. I reconnected, and voila, my rank appeared (fell to second), and new levels are contributing to my score. I completed two episodes this day in one sitting, conserving my energy for Sunday and giving my opponents less time to catch up.

I found out that the glitch also negated any progress I've made in Friday. I also found out that the workaround does not work on the Windows app edition.

Sunday (scattered sessions)

Cutoff is at five episodes on average	Overtaken!

Unfortunately, I found out the workaround does not work every time. If this fails, my leaderboard showing 2nd Knockouts reverted to 1st Knockouts, right after connection. Even worse, in some successful reconnections, my leaderboard got affected by the same glitch (and also my progress to the tournament got negated), and my widget became dashed and unclickable again.

I am eventually able to sort out the glitch for this day. Hence, I kept my phone on, with all unnecessary features like location services disabled, and with only the game app running while setting on Focus Mode to prevent loading up my browser in case I misclicked on an ad. This is a Double Candy Royale day; my jackpot share is at 188 players among "7 other winners," and I decided to stop at the turn of the day Zulu Time while placed first, only to resume if I am about to be overtaken.

Countdown

Maria was eventually able to overtake me without using a hex, putting me in second place. I again fell asleep during the final hours, while in second place. Unless I am able to report that the glitch was inequitable to my progress, it took away 10 gold bars, two free switches, and a lollipop.

The plan

I will have to prepare for the worst, and optimize my resources if the glitch loses its hold for the upcoming stage.

Between stages

I will complete one episode between stages so I will receive the Daily Stamp passes on Sunday, and make progress on the infamous objective of collecting candy colors from new level wins.

Case scenarios

The best case scenario is if the glitch does not apply to Round 1. It is possible I will face the glitch in Round 1, and if so, my leaderboard while offline will display either 1st Knockouts or 2nd Knockouts, but as long as I can deploy the workaround I should be fine provided I keep my device continuously on and in the game. The worst case is if I could not resolve the glitch via workaround on either platform, which would end my run there unless I have been granted a remedy.

I will start the round with a single Candy Royale and the 1st place Weekly Contest passes, alongside a full set of hex tokens and 4652 gold (I am almost a nerd now). I have found a way to defer the Weekly Contest passes. As the Super Charger comes alongside Candy Royale, this means I will play with double color bombs for the first two days (centered on midnight Zulu Time), and single color bombs for the weekend and countdown. My Daily Stamp pass will land on the Sunday.

Predictions

I am expected to be placed in a leaderboard of fifty or hundred, as opposed to the knockouts and qualifiers, where I am placed in a leaderboard by start time (and hence vulnerable to the late start tactic).

The percentile cutoff is top 2% or 1% rather than top 50% (qualifier and first knockout) or 30% (second knockout). I may see another player with a very large win streak (mine is at 2316); in the previous rounds none had a win streak greater than 15, and in many cases they failed new levels several times, and likely had to wait for lives. Finally, I do not control the destiny of who will hex to the top, or whether someone will hex me off of the leaderboard during the final hours. In fact, I failed to stay awake for both knockout stages, yet still didn't fall in the leaderboard position.

Each hex corresponds to around 20000 to 40000 more score achieved. That means, I have to complete ten to twenty more episodes based on the number of hexes deployed by the player who used the most hexes, and the player's progression speed.

My strategy is working but it's really boring.

Come on Sky, get moving! Give me something to do, a reason to keep crushing…

I know you can do it! Why stop in the middle of the episode when you are this good a crusher?

I think I passed 479 levels during that round of qualifiers.

I got a message telling me I got an Xtra 10x's but I never received it. Anybody else?